Hawthorne and His Circle

res-On the trail of

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in redbreast-A sad

man I've ever known

irred dimly-"She l

Wales and half-a-

onest English simp

Isaac Newton, and

genius-Deep and

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hed confidence. He was continually, and in the quietest way, having the most astonishing and cataclysmic adventures; he would be blown up, as it were, by a dynamite explosion, and presently would return from the sky undisturbed, with only a slight additional sparkle in his soft eyes, and with the lock of hair that fell gracefully over his forehead only a trifle disordered. The most courteous and affectionate of men, with the most yielding and self-effacing manners, he had the spirit of a paladin, and was afraid of nothing. He would empty his pockets-or if, as too often happened, they were already empty, he would pledge his credit to help a friend out of a hole; and, on the other hand, he was always hot upon the trail of a dazzling fortune, which, like Emerson's Forerunners, never was overtaken. It would not long have availed him, had it been otherwise, for never was there a Monte Cristo who lavished wealth as O'Sullivan habitually did in anticipation, and would undoubtedly have done in fact had the opportunity been afforded him. He was gifted with a low, melodious, exquisitely modulated voice, and a most engaging and winning manner, and when he set out to picture the simple and easy methods whereby he proposed to make millions, it was next to impossible to resist him. He was like a beautiful, innocent, brilliant child, grown up

hair. As for Miss Ella Rogers, it is with some embarrassment that I refer to her; inasmuch as I fell violently in love with her at first sight, and I have reason to think that she never fully appreciated or adequately responded to my passion, though, at the time, I was nearly one-third of her age-she being five-and-twenty. She was a dark and lively beauty, thoroughly self-possessed, and versed in social accomplishments, and gifted with dramatic talent. She afterwards made a great impression in the court of the Portuguese monarch, and more than once the King himself chose her as his partner in the ball. Reports of these gayeties came to my ears; and I found the other day part of a letter which I addressed to her, remonstrating against these royal flirtations. It is written in pencil, upon t

rom fog-ridden Liverpool, she went with my sisters to Lisbon, where the O'Sullivans were by that time established, and spent several months with them, and saw all the splendors of the naive but brilliant little court of Do

merican politician of that epoch; his eyes were small, shrewd, and twinkling; there was a sort of professional candor in his bearing, but he looked like a sad and weary old man. He talked somewhat volubly to my father, who kept him going by a question now and then, as his way generally was with visitors. There was a flavor of rusticity in his speech; he was not a man of culture or polish, though unquestionably of great experience of the world. He was dressed in a wide-skirted coat of black broadcloth, and wore a white choker put on a little askew. The English, who were prone to be critical of our representatives, made a good deal of fun of Mr. Buchanan, and told anecdotes about him which were probably exaggerated or apocryphal. It was alleged, for example, that, speaking of the indisposition of a female relative of his, he had observed that it was due to the severity of the English climate. "She never enjoyed delicate health at home," he had declared; "in fact, she was always one of the most indelicate women I've ever known." And it was asserted that he had been admonished by the Lord High Chamberlain, or by the Gold Stick-in-Waiting, for expectorating upon the floor of her Majesty's palace at a levee. Such ribaldries used to be popular in English mouths concerning American vis

earer he presented rather a shabby, or, at least, rusty appearance. His felt hat was not so black as it had been; his coat was creased and soiled; his boots needed a blacking. He swung a cane as he stumped along, and there was a sort of faded smartness in his beari

hands, emitted a hoarse cackle of triumph, and exclaimed, "There-there it is! I knew I'd get it; she loves me-she loves me!" He then permitted her to slip down from his knee and withdraw to her mother, and resumed the talk which our entrance had interrupted. It was chiefly about people of whom we youngsters knew nothing-though our ignorance only argued ourselves unknown, for he named persons all famous in their day. He had seen George IV., Napoleon, Talleyrand, Wellington; he had been intimate with Coleridge, De Quincey, Wordsworth, Lamb, Monk Lewis; he was a sort of elder brother or deputy uncle to Tennyson, Browning, Dickens; he had quaffed mountain-dew with Walter Scott and had tramped the moors shoulder to shoulder with Kit North; the courts of Europe were his familiar stamping-grounds; he had the nobility and gentry at his finger-ends; he was privileged, petted, and sought after everywhere; if there were any august door we wished to enter, any high-placed personage we desired to approach, any difficult service we wanted rendered, he was the man to help us to our object. Who, then, was he? He has long been utterly forgotten; but he was well known, or notorious, during the first half of the last century; he was such a character as could flourish only in England. His name was William Jerdan; he was born in 1785, and was now, therefore, about seventy years old. He had started in life poor, with no family distinction, but with some more or less useful connections either on the father's or the mother's side. He had somehow got an English education, and he had pursued his career on the basis of his native wits, his indomitable effr

k in four pretentious volumes of "wretched twaddle"-as my father called them-which he published under the title of My Auto

me, despite its portentous and thundering title-it carries the gloss, in Warren's handwriting, "the fruit of many a long year's reflection." So does every light comedian imagine that he can play Hamlet. Of Warren himself I barely recall a slight, light figure with a sharp nose and a manner lacking in repose; indeed, he was very much like a light comedian in light comedy, eager to hold the centre of the stage, full of small movements and remarks, and-which more interested us children-with a gift for turning himself into other people by slight contortions of countenance and alterations of voice. The histrionic ab

d-forty years of age, so his famous books must ha

ws, and he wrote the following passage in commenting upon the general European situation of that day and the prospects for England. It has never been printed, because it stood only for the sentiment of the moment, but may be opportunely quoted now that the aspect of European politics shows symptoms of soon undergoing vital changes. "The truth is," wrote my father, "there is a spirit lacking in England which we in America do not lack; and for the want of it she will have to resign a foremost position among the nations, even if there were not enough other circumstances to compel her to do so. Her good qualities are getting out of date; at all events, there should be something added to them in the present stage of the world." Engl

the nature. The intellect thus acquired extraordinary power and brilliance, and appropriated to itself, in a sort of image, as it were, the qualities which no longer possessed manifestation on the material plane. Nothing out of the way would, therefore, be noticed, unless or until some combination of circumstances should bring the exceptional condition into every-day light. This happened with Ruskin, and he was, of course, unable to regard the matter in the same light as his critics did. He viewed his wife's disinclination towards him by the light of mere cold logic; and the reason his friends were alienated from him was, not that her grounds of objection to him were justifiable, but that Ruskin (according to the common re

ce plain, or ugly, if they chose, but there was no doubt that its range of expression was vast and poignant, that it could reflect with immense energy the thoughts of the mind, and could radiate the very soul of tragedy. Her figure was tall and superb and her carriage stately without any stiffness, and appalling though she was as Lady Macbeth or Meg Merrilies, in our little drawing-room she was only simple, sincere, gentle, and winning. Born actress though she was, her horizon was by no means restricted to things histrionic; she talked well on many subjects, and was at no loss for means to entertain even so small and inexperienced a person as myself. I had never seen a theatre, and did not know what an actress was, but I loved her, and she was good to me. It was not the interest of the stories she told me, so much as the personal influence that went with them, that entrance

ost climbing up the wall of the room in some of his paroxysms; but he treated it all as a joke, and was always ready to laugh as soon as he got through coughing. It left